Al-Qaeda’s second-in-command accused the US of leading a crusade to turn Pakistan from a Muslim nuclear power into a divided nation and urged Pakistanis to join jihad to resist.
Militants were in a tug-of-war with the US-allied government as they push to make Pakistan a “citadel of Islam” in the region, Ayman al-Zawahri said in a audio recording posted on an al-Qaeda-linked Web site.
“It is the individual duty of every Muslim in Pakistan to join the mujahidin,” Zawahri said. “The crusade aims at eradicating the growing jihad nucleus in order to break up this nuclear capable country, and transform it into tiny fragments, loyal to and dependent on the neo-crusaders.”
Zawahri argued Pakistan was virtually occupied by the US through US-allied politicians and officers who are fighting Islamists’ plans “to establish Pakistan as a political entity standing as a citadel of Islam in the subcontinent.”
“The scholars of Islam have unanimously agreed that if the infidel enemy enters a Muslim country, it is the duty of all of its inhabitants, and when needed their neighbors, to mobilize for Jihad. The Americans are today occupying Afghanistan and Pakistan, so it is the duty of every Muslim in Pakistan to rise up to fight them,” he said.
The Egyptian militant leader described Washington’s allies in Pakistan as a “clique of corrupt politicians and a junta of military officers who are fighting to remain on the American pay list by employing Pakistan’s entire military and all its resources in the American crusade against Islam.”
Meanwhile, Pakistani troops killed six suspected Taliban fighters near the Swat Valley’s main city, the army said yesterday, underscoring the region’s fragile security even as refugees displaced by fighting return home.
Few details were immediately available on the incident in Kabal town, but the military was planning to take local journalists to the scene to show them the bodies. Kabal lies across the river from Mingora, the Swat Valley’s main city, and it was considered a likely hide-out of the Swat Taliban’s leadership.
In the sweltering streets of Jakarta, buskers carry towering, hollow puppets and pass around a bucket for donations. Now, they fear becoming outlaws. City authorities said they would crack down on use of the sacred ondel-ondel puppets, which can stand as tall as a truck, and they are drafting legislation to remove what they view as a street nuisance. Performances featuring the puppets — originally used by Jakarta’s Betawi people to ward off evil spirits — would be allowed only at set events. The ban could leave many ondel-ondel buskers in Jakarta jobless. “I am confused and anxious. I fear getting raided or even
POLITICAL PATRIARCHS: Recent clashes between Thailand and Cambodia are driven by an escalating feud between rival political families, analysts say The dispute over Thailand and Cambodia’s contested border, which dates back more than a century to disagreements over colonial-era maps, has broken into conflict before. However, the most recent clashes, which erupted on Thursday, have been fueled by another factor: a bitter feud between two powerful political patriarchs. Cambodian Senate President and former prime minister Hun Sen, 72, and former Thai prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra, 76, were once such close friends that they reportedly called one another brothers. Hun Sen has, over the years, supported Thaksin’s family during their long-running power struggle with Thailand’s military. Thaksin and his sister Yingluck stayed
Kemal Ozdemir looked up at the bare peaks of Mount Cilo in Turkey’s Kurdish majority southeast. “There were glaciers 10 years ago,” he recalled under a cloudless sky. A mountain guide for 15 years, Ozdemir then turned toward the torrent carrying dozens of blocks of ice below a slope covered with grass and rocks — a sign of glacier loss being exacerbated by global warming. “You can see that there are quite a few pieces of glacier in the water right now ... the reason why the waterfalls flow lushly actually shows us how fast the ice is melting,” he said.
Residents across Japan’s Pacific coast yesterday rushed to higher ground as tsunami warnings following a massive earthquake off Russia’s far east resurfaced painful memories and lessons from the devastating 2011 earthquake and nuclear disaster. Television banners flashed “TSUNAMI! EVACUATE!” and similar warnings as most broadcasters cut regular programming to issue warnings and evacuation orders, as tsunami waves approached Japan’s shores. “Do not be glued to the screen. Evacuate now,” a news presenter at public broadcaster NHK shouted. The warnings resurfaced memories of the March 11, 2011, earthquake, when more than 15,000 people died after a magnitude 9 tremor triggered a massive tsunami that
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